Everybody's Fool

The great American master Richard Russo, at the very top of his game, returns to the characters who made Nobody's Fool (1993) a contemporary classic.





Richard Russo's new novel takes place in the decaying American town of North Bath over the course of a very busy weekend, ten years after the events of Nobody's Fool. Donald 'Sully' Sullivan is trying to ignore his cardiologist's estimate that he has only a year or two left. Ruth, his long-time lover, is increasingly distracted by her former son-in-law, fresh out of prison and intent on making trouble. Police chief Doug Raymer is tormented by the improbable death of his wife, while local wiseguy Carl Roebuck might finally be running out of luck.





Filled with humour, heart and hard-luck characters you can't help but love, Everybody's Fool is a crowning achievement from one of the great storytellers of our time.



Richard Russo is the author of seven previous novels, two collections of stories, and On Helwig Street, a memoir. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which, like Nobody's Fool, was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries. He lives in Maine.



[T]he roguish, ragtag residents of North Bath, New York, still prove a diverting lot, even if you've not previously made their acquaintance...there's never a dull moment as the tragi-farcical events gradually snowball, with lightning strikes, an escaped cobra and attempted murder along the way.



A delightful return . . . to a town where dishonesty abounds, everyone misapprehends everyone else and half the citizens are half-crazy. It's a great place for a reader to visit, and it seems to be Russo's spiritual home.



The Fool books represent an enormous achievement, creating a world as richly detailed as the one we step into each day of our lives. . . . Sully in particular emerges as one of the most credible and engaging heroes in recent American fiction.



A madcap romp, weaving mystery, suspense and comedy in a race to the final pages.



Richard Russo can write like Edith Wharton leavened with a touch of David Lodge



A writer of great comedy and warmth, Russo's living proof that a book can be profound and wise without aiming straight into darkness.